On 4 October 1777, during the Battle of Germantown, about 120 soldiers of the British 40th Regiment of Foot under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Musgrave were cut off as the British line fell back, and they barricaded themselves inside Cliveden, the stone country house of Benjamin Chew. They closed the ground floor shutters, blocked the doors and posted marksmen at the upper windows. The advancing Americans had to decide whether to bypass the house or take it. Timothy Pickering argued for leaving it behind and pressing on. General Henry Knox, Washington's chief of artillery, argued that it was unmilitary to leave a fortified enemy post in the army's rear. Washington sided with Knox and ordered the house taken.
The first assault was driven back with heavy losses. Maxwell's brigade was sent in, and Knox's guns fired on the house, but its walls of Wissahickon schist held. The front door was blown in and the defenders piled furniture against the entrance, and the few Americans who got inside were killed with the bayonet. Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens tried to burn the defenders out by piling firewood against the house, but the fire did not catch, and Laurens was wounded that day. Cliveden's own history puts 70 of the American dead on its grounds.
The time spent on the house let the British regroup, and in the fog Stephen's division and Wayne's brigade fired on each other. The attack collapsed and the Americans retreated. Chew, who was in New Jersey during the battle, sold the house to the merchant Blair McClenachan and bought it back in 1797. Musket burns are still visible on the floor of the entrance hall.
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40.0474, -75.1812
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